Did you know there’s a card, maybe even sitting in your wallet right now, that could relieve your stress and save you money?
I have been using the UTA Ed Pass for a year now and I love it! I paid $70 through Utah Valley University for my first card and thought that was an awesome deal. When I enrolled at Weber, one of the first things I checked into was how to get the UTA card. I was told to request it through my portal on Weber.com and then to pick it up at the help desk in the Shepherd Union. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was free!
Why wouldn’t you take advantage of being able to get around without spending a single cent? No more driving all around campus, trying to find a parking place, no more worrying about how much gas it will take to get to your destination and back. The Frontrunner goes from Pleasant View to Provo and back every day but Sunday. The buses run everyday, but are less frequent on Sunday, and TRAX runs every day.
It isn’t hard to use public transportation once you know where to get the info you need. There are papers for each route that have the schedule on them, and the UTA website has a trip finder. You just input your starting location and your destination point, and it will tell you all the different options available; you can even call 1-800-743-3882 and get the next bus times or talk to a live person, and they will help you get where you need to go. One more way to get info about when the next bus is coming is to text the bus stop number to 882882, and it will tell you the next several times buses will arrive.
It is so relaxing to look out the window and not worry about driving in a traffic jam. I can do homework, read, play games, text safely or even take a nap while the train glides down the track at 70 mph, passing all the cars crawling on the freeway. According to Transloc, an organization focused on mass transit going from a last resort to a first choice for riders, using public transportation reduces stress. They cite many other benefits on their website.
Over winter break, I spent three days on public transportation, traveling from Ogden to Lehi and Provo and back, to visit family and friends. I stopped in Salt Lake City on one of the trips to visit my daughter and used TRAX and buses to get to her home. Not once the entire time did I have to stress about driving in city traffic.
So have you found the gold in your pocket? If you have not used your UTA pass, get out there and try it. Even though the price of gas is coming down, it is still more expensive to drive than it is to use my UTA card, which you can get free of charge. Cha ching!
